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Tuesday will see an Extraordinary General Assembly of the ECU board, where some very far-reaching decisions are on the agenda: the introduction of Sofia and Bilbao rules in all ECU events, the introduction of a dress code, and to copyright chess games. The president of the Turkish Chess Federation is asking delegates to reject the proposals and announcing his intention to sue if they are passed.

Open letter to European chess federationsAli Nihat Yazici on the mismanagement of ECUDue to the very intensive political environment during the European Chess Union, ECU, General Assembly in Khanty-Mansiysk in 2010, members of the general assembly had decided that it was better to postpone the decision regarding the organization of the events to a new extraordinary assembly. This new Extraordinary General Assembly of the ECU will be held in Aix-les-Bains, on March 29th, 2011. However, in addition to the topic of event organizations, the current ECU management has prepared a long list of further proposals to be discussed at Aix-les-Bains.

The topic of the proposals include the shift of event decision power from general assembly to the board, the budget, Sofia rules, dress code, Bilbao rules, and copyright for moves. We, as the Turkish Chess Federation, find all of these proposals unsound and lacking:

The shift of event decision power from general assembly to the board is unacceptable, because the board intends to pass this important proposal hastily without giving all federations sufficient time to respond.

The proposed budget changes are intended to increase the spending, whereas the ECU management has yet to attempt to collect 100,000€ worth of debts from three organizers and has yet find one Euro worth of sponsorship after their six month mandate.

Sofia rules divide the rule set of the world championship cycle, and this division hurts the image of chess; therefore, such proposal should be implemented not on a continental, but on a global level.

The dress code proposal burdens many of the smaller European chess federations financially, because it is not backed up by a continental sponsorship program.

The Bilbao rules would not only bring chaos to rating and title calculations, but also hurt the image of chess by splitting the rule set across the world championship cycle.

A copyright for moves cannot be enforced and would only discourage the media to promote chess.

We hope that you, the esteemed managers and delegates of the esteemed federations of the ECU, will be convinced by the end of this letter that these ineffectual proposals that could have very negative consequences for European and for world chess. We invite you to reject all of these proposals at the Extra Ordinary General Assembly in Aix-les-Bains.